how they govern themselves," Kissinger raged. "The President always says to tilt to
Pakistan, but every proposal I get [from inside the US government] is in the opposite
direction. Sometimes I think I am in a nut house." This went on for months. On
December 3, at a meeting of Kissinger's Washington Special Action Group, Kissinger
exploded again, exclaiming "I've been catching unshirted hell every half-hour from the
president who says we're not tough enough. He really doesn't believe we're carrying out
his wishes. He wants to tilt towards Pakistan and he believes that every briefing or
statement is going the other way." [fn 15]
But no matter what Rogers, the State Department and the rest of the washington
bureaucracy might do, Kissinger knew that George Bush at the UN would play along
with the pro-Pakistan tilt. "And I knew that George Bush, our able UN ambassador,
would carry out the President's policy," wrote Kissinger in his memoirs in describing his
decision to drop US opposition to a Security Council debate on the subcontinent. This
made Bush one of the most degraded and servile US officials of the era.
Indira Gandhi had come to Washington in November to attempt a peaceful settlement to
the crisis, but was crudely snubbed by Nixon and Kissinger. The chronology of the acute
final phase of the crisis can be summed up as follows:
December 3-- Yahya Khan ordered the Pakistani Air Force to carry out a series of
surprise air raids on Indian air bases in the north and west of India. These raids were not
effective in destroying the Indian air force on the ground, which had been Yahya Khan's
intent, but Yahya Khan's aggression did precipitate the feared Indo-Pakistani war. The
Indian Army made rapid advances against the Pakistani forces in Bengal, while the
Indian navy blockaded Pakistan's ports. At this time, the biggest-ever buidldup in the
Soviet naval forces in the Indian Ocean also began.
Dec. 4-- At the UN Security Council, George Bush delivered a speech in which his main
thrust was to accuse India of repeated incursions into East Pakistan, and challenging the
legitimacy of India's resort to arms, in spite of the plain evidence that Pakistan had struck
first. Bush introduced a draft resolution which called on India and Pakistan immediately
to cease all hostilities. Bush's resolution also mandated the immediate withdrawal of all
Indian and Pakistani armed forces back to their own territory, meaning in effect that India
should pull back from East Pakistan and let Yahya Khan's forces there get back to their
mission of genocide against the local population. Observers were to be placed along the
Indo-Pakistani borders by the UN Secretary General. Bush's resolution also contained a
grotesque call on India and Pakistan to "exert their best efforts towards the creation of a
climate conducive to the voluntary return of refugees to East Pakistan." Ths resolution
was out of touch with the two realities: that Yahya Khan had started the genocide in East
Pakistan back in March, and that Yahya had now launched aggression against India with
his air raids. Bush's resolution was vetoed by the Soviet representative, Yakov Malik.
December 6- The Indian Government extended diplomatic recognition to the independent
state of Bengladesh. Indian troops made continued progress against the Pakistani army in
Bengal.